Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Trainee

Rise Up: Overcoming Resistance to Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Efforts

Leader(s)

• 

  Allison Guerin, EdD, MEd (she/her/hers)

  Senior Director of Education and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Justice
  Pediatrics
  Stanford University School of Medicine
  Palo Alto, California, United States

Co-Leader(s)

• 

  April Edwell, MD, MAEd (she/her/they/them)

  Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
  Pediatrics
  UCSF
  University of California San Francisco
  Oakland, California, United States
• 

  Baraka Floyd, MD, MSc (she/her/hers)

  Clinical Associate Professor, Associate Chair of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice, Department of Pediatrics
  Pediatrics
  Stanford University School of Medicine
  Palo Alto, California, United States
• 

  Mollie Grow, MD MPH (she/her/hers)

  Professor of Pediatrics
  University of Washington School of Medicine
  Seattle, Washington, United States
• EO

  Emma Omoruyi, MD, MPH

  Professor of Pediatrics
  Pediatrics
  McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
  Houston, Texas, United States
• 

  DENNIS SPENCER, MD, PhD (he/him/his)

  Associate Program Director - Boston Combined Residency Program
  Boston Childrens Hospital
  BOSTON, Massachusetts, United States
• 

  Andria Tatem, MD MED (she/her/hers)

  Assistant Professor
  Eastern Virginia Medical School
  Norfolk, Virginia, United States

Workshop

Description: The COVID-19 pandemic and the public murder of George Floyd led the country to face a national reflection on its role in perpetuating racism in 2020. Organizations implemented diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives to acknowledge and address racism, and now three years later, these initiatives have faced varying levels of success. In many cases, DEI efforts have faced backlash; one study found that 42% of employees report their peers view their organizations’ DEI efforts as divisive and another 42% say their peers resent DEI efforts.

Resistance to DEI efforts can be categorized into three types of responses: denial, distancing, and distortion. In medicine, little research has been done on the impact of backlash to the success of DEI efforts. However, we know from our experiences as DEI leaders across the US that resistance is a pervasive issue, and that it inhibits the ability of DEI work to dismantle racist systems and ideology and to create the equitable systems needed.

In this session, we will engage participants in an interactive workshop and present evidence-based strategies to combat resistance to DEI efforts. We will begin with a flipped classroom approach by asking participants to discuss case scenarios and brainstorm how they would respond to resistance. We will then present a mini didactic, followed by a panel discussion on how each institution has dealt with backlash to DEI efforts. We will conclude with an individual reflection where participants will develop a plan for dealing with resistance at their home institutions.